LOS ANGELES — The seriously injured passenger who used his own blood to scrawl a love message in the wreckage of a derailed train said he thought he was writing last words to his family.

“I don’t know why I did it. I didn’t think they would see it,” John Phipps said Thursday.

Phipps, 44, spent a week in the hospital with internal bleeding and head and groin injuries after he was pinned under the wreckage during the Jan. 26 disaster in neighboring Glendale.

Phipps, who walked on crutches, revealed his identity Thursday at a news conference where he was flanked by about a dozen firefighters who took part in the train rescue. He thanked them and called them heroes.

Eleven people died and 200 were hurt when a Metrolink commuter train struck a sport utility vehicle parked on the tracks in an aborted suicide attempt, officials said. The train derailed and struck another Metrolink train.